Public Transport | Cities are forced to cut or raise taxes, lamented Valerie Plante

Faced with “clearly insufficient” help from the Legault government, Greater Montreal’s transit companies no longer have a choice: They must cut service or pass on tax increases to taxpayers, lamented Mayor Valérie Plante.

“It’s really unfortunate. There are cuts in services, or it could have an impact on taxation,” he lamented in the journal Scrum M on Tuesday.^me Plante is also president of the Montreal Metropolitan Community (CMM), which brings together 82 municipalities in the region.

Earlier, Quebec confirmed in its budget update that total aid for public transportation next year will indeed be 265 million, including 238 million for Greater Montreal, which the government calculates absorbs 70% of the deficit. According to the latter, the deficit was $338 million.

However, the cities had a very different view. As of Monday, they estimated the deficit at 532 million, revising it to 461 million. On Monday, in a letter to Prime Minister François Legault, CMM’s elected representatives asked Quebec for a final 346 million in funding to absorb 75% of the deficit, an increase of 128 million.

It is above all the income linked to the registration tax that explains the gap between the government deficit and the cities’ calculations. These revenues, estimated at 122 million, should be dedicated to the development of public transport depending on the city, while Quebec wants to allocate it to the deficit.

In the end, Quebec didn’t budge, with cities already short of 300 million in aid, indicating that the metro on the island of Montreal would close after 11 p.m. Reductions in bus routes and layoffs of drivers have been noted in Greater Montreal.

“The situation is dire”

In short, “the situation is serious” in Greater Montreal, says M^me Plant. “We’re still honestly in shock,” he said, adding that transit companies in Montreal, Laval and Longueuil will have to “evaluate different scenarios” to determine “what impact this will have on service.”

In the suburbs, EXO should also do the same, in collaboration with the Regional Metropolitan Transport Authority (ARTM), said the elected official, who believes ARTM can offer “different scenarios” in the future.

At the Société de transport de Montreal (STM), we are still assessing the damage. “The Quebec government’s final offer was made Thursday evening. We are still waiting for ARTM’s figures to know STM’s role. So it is too early to determine concrete scenarios. […] Our budget will be presented in the coming weeks,” its spokeswoman Amelie Regis says by email.

On Monday, ARTM was cautious in its comments, indicating that it had not yet confirmed all the elements needed for its analysis.

In Journal Scrum, M^me Plante also lamented the fact that the government is repeating the same mistakes of the past without worrying about the consequences of long-term travel on public transport.

“Former Transport Minister [François Bonnardel] Formed a great commission, he consulted all, but we have never seen the color of this report. It’s Groundhog Day,” he asserted, decrying the CMM being told “here’s the check, that’s it”.

For the future, however, a five-year financial plan still needs to be put together, something both sides say they are ready to tackle. “We try to be really motivated […]But we want this time to be right for us to sit down as partners,” argued Mayor Plante on the matter.